


Toy Soldier

by marigoldmonster



Series: other!Drake [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Violence, Gen, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:37:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5685991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marigoldmonster/pseuds/marigoldmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janet Drake was desperate to have a son, even if that meant she'd have to make one from scratch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toy Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, it's the Pinocchio AU no one asked for.

“Janet, darling, you don't need to do this.”

Janet glanced back at her husband with narrowed eyes and bared her teeth in threat when he took a step too close. “Don't tell me what I _need_ , Jack; I know what I'm doing!”

Jack raised his hands in what he hoped was a placating manner, hunching in his shoulders to make himself look weaker, “I know that, you know that, hell, I'm pretty sure all of Gotham knows that. Everyone knows that Janet Drake is a force to be reckoned with and a step above all other mortal men-” 

“Not just the men,” she interrupted, a sneer curling her lip, “everyone – man, woman, mortal, god – it doesn't matter! I am better than all who came before me and all who dare try to follow.”

Jack smiled and took another step closer to his wife, slowly placing his hands on her shoulders. She tensed and curled her body around the small bundle of straw cradled in her arms.

“I know that, Darling. You are the best, most important person I have ever met, and you make my life worth living,” Jack murmured, sliding his hands to wrap around the top of her arms. “That's why I don't want you to feel like you're obligated to give me anything – especially not a child.”

Janet snarled, and it sounded more like a sob, “No, I need to do this; I _want_ to do this. It'll be so easy, I promise – nothing bad will happen. We'll finally have a son, and the board and your father will leave us alone.

Jack sighed and sank to the floor to sit with his wife, wrapping himself around her back and hooking his chin over her shoulder. The doll cradled so carefully in her hands was burlap stretched over dried out straw, dressed to the nines in a miniature version of a child's suit, and drenched in red.

“You know, even if you – if _we_ – do this, my father will still find some reason to nitpick at us. The board, too. They might actually be even worse than he is,” he reminded her, a resigned amusement coloring his tone. He felt more than heard Janet's sniffle and sighed, slowly reaching around her to gently prod at the doll. The tips of his fingers came away tacky with blood.

Jack forced his eyes away from the doll – from the blood – and tightened his arms around his wife. “Janet,” he asked cautiously, “are you okay?”

Janet shrugged out of his embrace and batted his hands away from both her and the doll, “You don't understand,” she muttered. Jack back-tracked away from her just in time to avoid having her nails score across his face. “Why can't you understand?”

“Honey? What are – why are you upset? What don't I understand?”

“I need to do this!” Janet was screaming now, the doll pressed tightly against her chest, and their mixed blood staining her gray blouse. “I'm going to give you a son! We are going to have a baby boy, and everyone will leave us alone! They'll stop telling you to divorce me, and we'll all be together and happy. The perfect family for the Gazette to fawn over – just like that son of a bitch wants!”

“Janet, please, just calm down,” Jack pleaded, “I'm not saying that you can't do it – just that I don't want you to feel like you have to!” Janet screeched in outrage and took another swipe at him, only this time, thin tendrils of blue lashed out from her hand and seared into his suit jacket and across his chest. Jack hissed and dropped to the floor, his hand clenching at the burnt flesh. 

“You don't understand,” she repeated, “I have to do this. I have to. If I don't, do you honestly believe that you father won't influence you to leave me?”

"No!” Jack snapped, “He wouldn't! The old man would certainly try, but I would never do that to you! Your the one who doesn't understand – I love you, Janet, more than anything else in the entire world. I chose you, and I'll stay because I love you.”

“No,” Janet started, rising up to stand at her full height to sneer down at her husband huddling on the ground, “You really don't.” 

Her hand crackled with the same blue energy as before, and Jack closed his eyes in resignation of the pain to come.

Janet stepped away from her husband's body slumped against the wall and sighed. She made her way back over to the doll she had abandoned across the room to do what needed to be done and picked it up gingerly.

“I'm sorry, my dear, Mommy didn't mean to leave you alone for so long,” she cooed as she tried to make the horse hair on the doll's head lay flat. “I'll fix you right up so you're never that helpless ever again.”

_

Jack stared at the young boy in Janet's arms, his wife fussing with dark, shiny hair the same color as him own. Janet noticed him and smiled brightly, her mood from earlier long gone. “Jack, quit hanging around the door and get in here! Come meet your son.”

Jack smiled back hesitantly and edged his way towards the pair on the bed, ready to drop to the floor in case Janet had another fit. Janet noticed and her eyes hardened, smile replaced with a harsh frown.

“Stop that and come here,” she ordered coldly, “I did this for you; you can at least appreciate it.” Jack winced and muttered an apology, his strides now longer in an attempt to appease his wife. The boy turned unnerving blue eyes to him and smiled when he reached them, teeth all shiny and white, a stark contrast against the blood still seeping into his skin. Janet was back to fussing with his hair, a slight frown on her face before she sighed, sounding oddly fond. “He has your coloring, but he mostly takes after me.”

At Jack's bemused look, she explained, “You weren't at the ritual, so the boy takes mostly after me in appearance, but he still has your hair and eye color. It's just rather unfortunate that the combination isn't exactly a pleasant one to see – more unnatural than anything, really.”

Jack very carefully tried not to think of how the boy was anything but natural as he smiled and ruffled the boys damp hair. “Well, I think he's rather handsome, don't you, Darling? He has the look of a noble.”

Janet huffed, hiding her smile behind a perfectly manicured hand, a thin layer of dried blood just starting to flake off of her pale skin. The boy preened under his hand at the compliment, and Jack squashed down the instinct to recoil from the feeling of his hand gliding through the boy's blood soaked hair.

“So, he got a name?” Jack asked as he moved his hand back to his side, trying not to look at it too closely. Janet shrugged in response and laid her hand across the boy's shoulder. “He's like any other child, really, just a bit ahead of the game when it comes to development. He has no name until we decide to give him one.”

“Huh,” Jack smiled, “I figured your goddess would have gifted him one or something.” Janet rolled her eyes while the boy burst into quiet giggles.

“That's not how the Goddess works, Jack,” she scolded him. “Now hurry up and name the boy so we can move on with our lives.” 

Jack turned back to the boy who smiled shyly up at him from the protective circle of Janet's arms. If he looked hard enough, Jack could see his memory of the straw doll overlapping with the pale boy in front of him. Janet said the boy shared his coloring, but as he looked into those unnerving blue eyes, all he could see was the flash of Janet's magic as she raised this child from that bloody doll.

“Timothy,” Jack murmured, his own hand laying over Janet's on the boy's – on Timothy's – shoulder, “Timothy Jackson Drake.”


End file.
